"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)

Thursday, August 17, 2017

"Institutional engagement
between our beloved University of Miami and the murderous Castro Regime,
and safeguarding the objectivity and integrity of ICCAS are essential
concerns of our community."

Assembly of the Cuban Resistance at the Brigade 2506 Museum and Library

STATEMENT OF THE ASSEMBLY OF THE CUBAN RESISTANCE ON UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI’S INSTITUTE OF CUBAN AND CUBAN AMERICAN STUDIES (ICCAS)

August 17, 2017

Throughout the years, the University of Miami has been an important part
of our Cuban-American community and the Cuban American community has
greatly supported the University of Miami. Many generations of
Cuban-Americans whose families made Miami their home have pursued their
higher education studies at the University of Miami. As our community
grew, so did the University. We are as much a part of the University of
Miami as the University is a part of us. Our community has made
significant contributions to the University’s growth and current
reputation throughout the world for its educational excellence. The
Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) has been a key
component of this relationship, and it has objectively and factually
reflected the truth about Cuba and our community since it was founded
almost twenty years ago.

At a time when freedom of speech and academic freedom are challenged by
the influence of both authoritarian and totalitarian regimes on campuses
across the country, we must all remain vigilant about the Castro
regime’s efforts to influence Cuban and Latin American studies at
American universities. The issue of ICCAS has to do with our concern
about hostile foreign government disinformation, and as the FBI has
reported, the Castro regime’s recruitment efforts in the academic
community in the United States.

A meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow by
the President of the University of Miami with a limited number of
members of our Cuban American community -as well as others- to discuss
the controversy regarding ICCAS. Many prominent Cuban exile and Cuban
American academics and intellectuals, as well as community leaders have
been regrettably excluded from this meeting. The Assembly of the Cuban
Resistance as a plural, inclusive and democratic institution of this
community, stands together as one to express our concerns and reiterate
that in order to safeguard ICCAS’ future as a truthful, balanced and
objective institute for Cuban and Cuban American studies within the
University of Miami, we recommend the following:

That
the University/Institute does not engage in any exchange with Cuban
academic institutions because they are under the direct control of
Cuba’s one-party totalitarian state. As has been amply demonstrated,
academia is seen as a tool of intelligence gathering and influence
peddling by the Castro dictatorship. We are steadfastly opposed to
opening up the University of Miami to this poisonous exchange.

That
the University/Institute rescinds the appointment of Dr. Andy Gomez as
ICCAS interim director. Dr. Gomez has been publicly recognized for
promoting ventures with commercial enterprises that do business with
Cuba under its totalitarian
regime. Dr. Gomez’ as interim director will further divide the Cuban
American community from the University of Miami, rather than bridging
the divide that has been created.

That
the University/Institute formally include the Cuban American community
in the search committee for the new interim director and the permanent
director of ICCAS.

It is our sincere hope that our fellow Cuban Americans attending tomorrow’s meeting
make the above recommendations their own. Institutional engagement
between our beloved University of Miami and the murderous Castro Regime,
and safeguarding the objectivity and integrity of ICCAS are essential
concerns of our community.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Read with great interest Julio M. Shiling's essay "Cuando la no violencia es insuficiente" [When nonviolence is insufficient] published in Pulso Venezolano and how it began with Ho Chi Minh's opinion that Gandhi would have abandoned the nonviolent struggle in a week if it had been the French, instead of the British, that he had to confront in India. The second critic of nonviolence cited in the essay Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, also a man of the Left, carries out an analysis that limits the possibilities of success to a democratic polity where freedom of expression and association exist.

Ideological and theoretical objections to nonviolence
Orthodox communists believe, as an intrinsic part of their doctrine, in class struggle and warfare as mechanisms of societal evolution. Mohandas Gandhi rejected this paradigm in favor of a nonviolent relationship between different social classes and racial groups. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of this new paradigm as the "beloved community." The past century has demonstrated that class struggle and war can achieve things in the short term, but often times the new system inaugurated with great violence turns out worse than the old preexisting one. This was the case in Russia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Ethiopia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

An analysis of conflicts over the past century both violent and nonviolent against a variety of different types of regimes: democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian reveals that both Ho Chi Minh and George Orwell are wrong, nonviolent campaigns have been more successful than violent campaigns. The more repressive and brutal a regime, the more effective nonviolent resistance and the less effective violent resistance. Democratic regimes that provide spaces for freedom of expression and association are much more resilient in dealing with and containing dissent.

Nonviolent campaigns doubly more successful then violent campaigns
University Academics Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict"
compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance
campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent campaigns achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under
half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.

In his essay on the dissolution of the Soviet empire Shiling argues that, although a factor, nonviolence was of less importance than the shift from a containment policy under previous U.S. Administrations to a rollback policy under Ronald Reagan during the Cold War. He also highlights the role of direct violent action against communist regimes in Grenada, Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistán, and El Salvador. Out of the five countries, one was a foreign invasion carried out by the United States (Grenada) while in the other four countries where indigenous movements received training and supplies to keep communists out of power (El Salvador) or force them out (Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistán) things did not go well. Communists took power (El Salvador) regained power (Nicaragua) stayed in power (Angola) or transitioned into something worse (Afghanistan) with the Taliban which involved blow back for the United States on September 11, 2001 with the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that claimed the lives of 3,000 Americans.

Difference between a foreign policy of nonviolent solidarity and one of appeasement
The question that should logically arise is how did things turn out where nonviolence was the primary approach both in international and domestic politics? In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union where the Reagan Administration along with UK's Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Helmut Kohl pursued an aggressive but predominantly nonviolent approach highlighting and demonstrating solidarity with dissidents. Russia and Belarus today are authoritarian regimes, but the rest of Eastern Europe remains, at least nominally, democratic which is a vast improvement over where they were in 1989.

Sadly the case of the Tiananmen uprising of 1989 in China provides a counterpoint where Western powers, led by the United States, had embraced the communist regime as a strategic and commercial partner. Instead of siding with the dissidents the West protested the massacre publicly but privately sided with the communist autocracy and empowered it to the point where it is an even greater threat today. Chinese dissidents bravely engaged in nonviolent resistance and shook the power centers of the Chinese Communist regime, but sadly a policy of appeasement by Western countries reinforced and protected the dictatorship.

In his essay Schilling left out the violent revolution in Romania that is now viewed as a false dawn because the violence was perpetrated by factions within the communist elite that remained in power afterwards. The drive for change in Eastern Europe began with Poland and the nonviolent Solidarity labor movement that achieved real and lasting change. The question that arises is why was Romania different than other countries in Eastern Europe? The answer, in part, is that U.S. policy was different.

There is a vast difference between a policy based in nonviolence and solidarity as was the Reagan Administration's policy, for the most part, in Eastern Europe with victims of repression and one of appeasement with the oppressor as was U.S. policy in Romania and China. Although on the surface they may appear similar, they are profoundly different.

Setting the record straight on nonviolence guru Gene Sharp
Shiling provides an overview of some of the important works of Gene Sharp and sums up his theory of power as follows: "Sharp's theory rests on the premise that the essence of power lies primarily in the subjects' obedience to political leadership. If
the subjects do not obey the political power, argues the American
theoretician, the leaders would not have power and consequently, the
dictatorship collapses or withers." However this idea is not Gene Sharp's but belongs to Étienne de La Boétie, a French Judge, who elaborated on this in his 1552 work "The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude."Gene Sharp's work is influenced by de La Boétie but is a lot more developed. Furthermore the case he makes is on how to self-liberate without depending on outside powers, that are often not reliable and driven by their own narrow self interests. Sharp's 2009 book available online: "Self-Liberation A Guide to Strategic Planning for Action to End a Dictatorship or Other Oppression" offers a clearer and more developed insight to his theoretical approach. Critics of nonviolent resistance view it as an unarmed struggle when contrasted with violent resistance. Gene Sharp in 1990 at the National Conference on Nonviolent Sanctions and Defense in Boston contested that mistaken view:

"I say nonviolent struggle is armed struggle. And we have to take back
that term from those advocates of violence who seek to justify with
pretty words that kind of combat. Only with this type of struggle one
fights with psychological weapons, social weapons, economic weapons and
political weapons. And that this is ultimately more powerful against
oppression, injustice and tyranny then violence."

Nonviolence theoretician Gene Sharp also recognizes that there is a moral dimension that cannot be ignored without dire consequences (as the recent drive to normalize relations with the Castro regime in Cuba demonstrated): "It is unreasonable to aim for a 'win- win' resolution. Brutal dictators
and perpetrators of genocide do not deserve to win anything."

German wives forced Hitler to return their Jewish husbands from death camps in 1943
It has been demonstrated that indigenous resistance movements confronting a brutal dictatorship have a much higher probability of success if they are nonviolent. Shiling mentions the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, but fails to mention how in 1943 on Rosenstrasse street German wives married to Jewish men, who had been taken to concentration camps, organized a series of strikes and protests that forced the Nazis to return their husbands back from the death camps. Those men survived the Holocaust thanks to their wives courageous and nonviolent action. The disturbing question that arises: What would have happened if instead of the violent Antifa movement, that fought the Nazis in street battles throughout the 1930s that escalated violence, opponents of the Nazis had followed Gandhi's advice at the time and resisted them nonviolently?

Although agree with Shiling that international support can help I do not believe that its absence relegates a nonviolent movement to "inspiring and epic heroic acts, but incapable of producing significant political changes on their own." Ironically that is an excellent description of what happens to a violent resistance movement without substantial outside logistical and material support. A nonviolent resistance that does an analysis of the situation on the ground, analyses the pillars of support for the regime and develops a strategy for undermining those pillars can accomplish a lot but it requires analysis, discipline, stubbornness and persistence.

World renown author and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner annually gives a series of community lectures on the history of Cuba that are heavily attended. The Institute opened its doors both to the Cuban American community and the Cuban dissident movement on the island. All voices and views were welcome in an atmosphere of rigorous academic exchange.

Dr. Jaime Suchlicki with Rosa María Payá

The director of the Institute, Professor Jaime Suchlicki is the co-editor of the tenth edition of Cuban Communism. Reviewers of the 901 page tome say that it "has widely come to be known as 'the Bible of Cuban Studies.'" The distinguished periodical Foreign Affairs said of it: "There is no handier guide to the Castro regime and the debates swirling around it." Dr. Suchlicki wanted "to create a place where young Cuban-Americans
could come and learn about Cuba’s history and culture,” and for the last 18 years he created that space at the University of Miami. This tradition of academic excellence and seeking out the facts hasmade it a long time target of the Castro regime.

The Hurricane used cover for Castro's 2016 death but appropriate today with ICCAS

Mike Gonzalez, currently a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation think tank, has written an important analysis of how foreign governments influence what Americans learn in college. The term "influence" is an understatement. He outlines how China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Cuba have successfully censored and propagandized what is taught at American colleges and universities. The section of the article on Cuba described what is now taking place at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies:

Long a thorn in the side of the communist dictatorship in Havana, ICCAS has constantly received vituperative attacks by the regime’s propaganda outlets. Never before, however, has it come under the threat of the university’s own leadership. Frenk is a long-standing and well-known admirer of the Cuban regime’s
health practices. As Mexico’s health secretary in 2001, he said Cuba had the best health indicators in Latin America, and Mexico would benefit from learning about Cuba’s success.

Unfortunately for Frenk, the ICCAS kept saying the truth about Cuba’s
failed health system, as it did on July 20 in a report called “Cuba’s
Silence is Dangerous to Your Health.” That report notes that “After a
century hiatus, cholera, malaria and dengue have returned to Cuba.” I
post the report here because it seems to have disappeared from the ICCAS website. The move to close the ICCAS by Frenk, whose wife Felicia Knaul was installed as
the university’s director of the Miami Institute of the Americas after
he became president, proved highly controversial in Miami. He now says
he never wanted to close the center at all, but only to change its
leadership.

Frenk’s version of events is disputed by Jose Azel, one of the
academics whom Jaime Suchliki, the esteemed ICCAS director, had to
summarily dismiss when he was informed by the university’s provost on
July 9 that he had to close the institute on August 15. In an article recently in El Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald’s
Spanish-language edition, Azel says “I have verified that Dr.
Suchliki’s termination agreement explicitly requires him to ‘effect the
cessation of operations for the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American
Studies’.”

When I passed by the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) last week the moving truck was there and the movers were carrying everything out. Last month when conflicting accounts emerged about what would become of ICCAS my experience in dealing with University bureaucrats as an undergraduate led me to believe Dr. Suchlicki, the faculty member with a half century of dedicated scholarship and service to the community, over Dr. Julio Frenk, the newly arrived bureaucrat with a fondness for Cuba's totalitarian healthcare system.

Dr. Suchlicki has not abandoned his mission but will now continue it outside of the University of Miami and that is a great shame. The lack of candor and coverup by the UM administration is an even greater shame and another black eye for academia.

Panel organized by the Cuban Democratic Directorate in 2015

For the record I was proud to have participated in several panel discussions over the years at the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) and mourn its passing at the University of Miami.

Keeping ICCAS at the University of Miami and maintaining the tradition of critical inquiry established by Dr. Suchlicki in 1999 is sorely needed in today's academic environment where academic freedom is under assault. I pray that this little platoon of society against all odds is maintained at the University of Miami. Today is supposedly Dr. Suchlicki's final day at the University of Miami after a half century of service. I hope that this will not be the case and that Professor Suchlicki will be able to continue and oversee the transition to new leadership that will keep his dream alive at the University of Miami.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot
drive out hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Neo-Nazis and Neo-Communists clash in Charlottesville, Virgina

Neo-Nazis, white supremacists organized a series of events in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate GeneralRobert E. Lee there that had sparked a debate in the community. Sadly these groups sought to use the existing controversy to advance their racist, hate filled agenda and attract national media attention.

Marching with Communist and Nazi flags in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday

Giving Nazi salutes and waving the flag of the Nazi Third Reich they marched by torch light and the next day gathered in protest. At the same time communist red guards filled the ranks of counter-protestors with calls for violence and intimidation to be directed at the Neo-Nazis, and white supremacists. The stage was set for a collision between two hateful ideologies feeding off each other along with the glare of media attention.

Some necessary historical context
More than 400,000 Americans were killed by the Axis Powers, led by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The Nazi swastika flag, in addition to its racist and anti-Semitic history, represents a regime that laid waste to Europe and killed tens of millions. An estimated 11 million non-combatants, of which six million were Jewish were murdered by the Nazis.

More victims of Nazism
These neo-communists also carried signs that read "Make racists afraid again." Violent clashes occurred, Heather Heyer, age 32, (a local counter protester) was killed run down by James Field, age 20, (a white supremacist from Ohio) who with a car drove into a crowd of counter protesters. Nineteen others were injured. Field has been charged with second degree murder.

The fact that in 2017 some would still wave either loathsome flag should give us all pause to reflect on what is going on and where we are headed. What is forgotten is that both share a common history. Both Fascism and Leninism emerged out of a crisis of Marxism. Marxist historians would prefer to forget that Benito Mussolini before starting fascism was a Marxist.

Furthermore despite their anti-racist rhetoric in the United States during the Obama Presidency the communist regime of North Korea engaged in a racist screed against President Obama in May of 2014 that drew an official critcism from the White House.

Ten days from today marks the 38th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact when Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and Nazi foreign
minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, signed a treaty between the Nazi Third Reich and the Soviet Union that became an alliance to conquer and divide Poland and the Baltic states between the two totalitarian dictatorships. It was responsible for the start of World War II.

The Czech writer Milan Kundera observed that "the struggle of man
against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." This
observation is especially relevant today when both the swastika and hammer and sickle are raised by young Americans and this dark chapter of history must not be forgotten.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Today, another shoe dropped, the Associated Press reported that Canadian government said that at least one Canadian
diplomat in Cuba has also been treated for hearing loss.
"Global Affairs Canada spokeswoman Brianne Maxwell said Canadian
officials 'are aware of unusual symptoms affecting Canadian and US
diplomatic personnel and their families in Havana.'" Spokesperson Heather Nauert in a State Department briefing yesterday revealed that two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the United States on May 23, 2017 in response to "incidents in Cuba." According to U.S. officials five U.S. diplomats were targeted
by a "sonic weapon" that led to "severe hearing loss" that led to some
of them canceling their tours and returning early to the United States.

Cuban state security agents have "pilfered car parts, slashed tires and
smashed car windows" of U.S. diplomats in Havana and left "unwelcome 'messages' like urine and
feces deposited in their homes."
The reaction of disbelief and surprise in the media to this news story is shocking and reflected in the tweet below:

The State Dept made no sense at all on this today. But if the source quoted in this AP story is right, this is nuts:https://t.co/30oCqLnWc5

The government of Cuba is an outlaw regime that has a record of not only mistreating Cubans but also engaging in actions against others that should also raise concerns. The use of a "sonic weapon" would be something new, but attempting to harm a diplomat is not. U.S. diplomat Robin Meyers was subjected to cars being used against her
as weapons in Cuba on February 23-24, 1996. Former Canadian ambassador to Cuba James Bartleman told The Globe and Mail today that he was "not surprised by this week’s reports, given his experience as envoy from 1981 to 1983. Halfway through his posting, a series of strange events occurred: His family dog was poisoned, a trade officer had a dead rat nailed to their door and the embassy started receiving threatening phone calls. Fed up, he called out the Cuban government."

Consider some of what the Castro regime has been doing in recent years:

In 2012 there were reports in the media of Cuban, Iranian and Venezuelan officials meeting in Mexico to discuss cyber attacks on U.S. soil allegedly seeking information about nuclear power plants in the United States

The Cuban government also helps orchestrate an immigration fraud network through Venezuela that has
smuggled radical Islamists into North America, reported in the
Center for a Secure Free Society’s “Canada on Guard” report.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Were U.S. diplomats targeted and harmed by a sonic weapon in Havana?
Spokesperson Heather Nauert in a State Department briefing today revealed that two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the United States on May 23, 2017 in response to "incidents in Cuba." Cuban diplomats have had a checkered history in their postings overseas and reducing their number on U.S. soil is a positive development. In Cuba the totalitarian state security apparatus spies on everyone and carries out active measuresagainst both foreign and domestic actors. According to U.S. officials five U.S. diplomats were targeted by a "sonic weapon" that led to "severe hearing loss" that led to some of them canceling their tours and returning early to the United States.

Cubans have played hardball before. U.S. diplomat Robin Meyers was subjected to cars being used against her as weapons by state security agents on February 23-24, 1996. The Miami Herald reported on it on November 24, 1996 after she had been expelled from Cuba:

"On Friday, Feb. 23, she was driving home from the U.S. interests section when a white Soviet-built Lada nearly sideswiped her car. She wrote off the near-miss to faulty brakes. Then it happened again. And again. She doubled back to the mission and had a U.S. security agent escort her home. The next day, she left for work, comfortably sandwiched between two U.S. escort cars. But another Lada, stuffed with her now-familiar baby sitters, tried to break into the chain of cars. She fled through an intersection on a changing light. The Lada tried to follow but was too late, and was slammed by an oncoming car."

This type of arranged accident was an innovation of the East German spy agency, known as the Stasi, who trained the Cuban State Security service known as "G2" and one of its standard tactics. Diplomats working in Cuba should not underestimate the dictatorship nor should those visiting the island for recreation or business.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

My prayers and thoughts are with the Venezuelan people in their struggle for freedom.

Yesterday at the Torch of Friendship on August 5, 2017

As an outsider I do not pretend to know the intricacies of what is taking place on the ground in Venezuela but there are patterns and historical trends with regards to conflicts with parallels to what is taking place in your country today that alarm me.

Voices now gaining traction in Venezuela make the argument that violent
resistance is now necessary to deal with the new political reality. Century of data and recent example of Syria shows belief that
abandoning nonviolence for violence will speed up change is mistaken.

Non-violent expert Gene Sharp offers the following advice to a non-violent movement when military units start to defect or mutiny. Maintain non-violence, do not organize soldiers to use violence against the remaining army. That is suicidal. Use the mutinous soldiers to persuade the rest of the soldiers also to
mutiny - take the army away then the regime will come tumbling down.

Furthermore, among some Venezuelans, there is the mistaken idea that
Cubans did not fight against the imposition of communist rule in Cuba.
Cuban author and artist Juan Abreu who advocates violent resistance
in Venezuela also does not sugarcoat the difficulty nor the fact that
Cubans failed to overthrow the Castros despite a formidable armed
resistance that lasted six years (1960-66) because the communists are experts in violence, torture and rewriting history.

Dear friends in Venezuela I offer this testimony with humility and ask you to take it into consideration.

The international media is finally describing Venezuela's government for what it is: a brutal dictatorship. Mercosur booted Venezuela out But Venezuela has been a dictatorship for some time and the dismantling of democratic institutions was already far advances in 2009. Venezuela
was suspended from MERCOSUR on August 5, 2017 after the breakdown of
the democratic order and non-compliance with the protocol of Ushuaia. Nevertheless the end of any semblance of an independent judiciary was seen in Venezuela eight years ago.

Judge María Lourdes Afiuni ruled that a near three year
pretrial detention ran afoul of the two year limit prescribed in
Venezuelan law and authorized the conditional liberty of Eligio Cedeño, a
banker accused of
corruption on December 10, 2009. The United Nations Working Group on
Arbitrary Detentions had already declared Cedeño's detention arbitrary.
The judge was detained that same day, ironically on human rights day,
and jailed.

The
next day President Hugo Chávez called the Judge a "bandit"who should be
jailed for thirty years. Days later Chávez reaffirmed that Judge
Afiuni was "correctly jailed" and advocated that she be sentenced to 35
years in prison. She was charged by prosecutors in January of 2010 with
"corruption, abuse of authority, and “favoring evasion of justice.”
Prosecutors provided no credible evidence to substantiate the charges."
She was held for over a year in prison during which "Judge Afiuni was raped
and suffered physical and psychological violence, including death
threats from other inmates." She was then transferred to house arrest. In June of 2013, Judge Afiuni was released on
bail, while her trial, which began in 2012, continued. In 2013 her house arrest was lifted as she began a battle against cancer. Chavez died on March 5, 2013 but the trial against the judge began to suffer delays, which apparently violate Venezuelan law continuing to the present day. Judge
Afiuni is barred from practicing law, leaving the country, or using her bank account or social networks. Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz entered the controversy on this case denying that the Judge Afiuni had been sexually assaulted, tortured and mistreated by agents of the Chavez regime. This whitewash provoked a response from the Judge. According to Afiuni's Attorney Thelma Fernández on June 30, 2015 Judge María Lourdes Afiuni broke her silence explaining to the court "how the INOF guards and officials of the Ministry of Justice sexually abused her and destroyed her vagina, anus and bladder." ... "The
evidence of ill treatment, torture and sexual abuse against Afiuni is
contained in the case file and at the United Nations; for this reason,
experts, rapporteurs and commissioners of international organizations
have issued so many statements in relation to the case. It is not that
they are biased, as hinted and said by Luisa Ortega Díaz. It is just
that all the evidence confirms all that happened to the judge."The situation has deteriorated even further under Nicolas Maduro to the point that Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz who had been the Attorney General of Venezuela from December 13, 2007 until August 5, 2017 would not grant a blank check for the Venezuelan regime's outlaw behavior. Now she is facing the same dangers as Judge Afiuni. On June 29, 2017 Maduro's rubber stamp Supreme Court froze her assets and barred her from leaving the country due to "alleged serious misconduct." Attorney General Ortega. Hours earlier according to a June 29, 2017 Voice of America article: she charged the Maduro regime with "state terrorism" and promised to "defend the constitution and democracy even with my life, I swear." She had also been critical of Maduro's constituent assembly and the irregularities surrounding the vote that brought into existence. The new assembly on August 5, 2017 removed her from office even though her term was supposed to last until 2021. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a precautionary measure for Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz on August 3, 2017 citing their concern "that Ms. Luisa Ortega Díaz and her family are in a serious and
urgent situation as their rights to life and integrity face an imminent
risk of irreparable harm." The IACHR goes into greater detail on how they arrived at their decision:

"In making this decision, the Commission identified the role and
visibility of Attorney General Ortega as the operator of justice in
denouncing violations of human rights and of alleged violations of the
legal and constitutional framework, that are allegedly a consequence of
the processes related to the Constituent Assembly. Among the risk
factors taken into account by the Commission are various statements and
stigmatizing pronouncements, some from high ranking officials, which
had linked the Attorney General with “terrorist” acts, qualifying her
as a traitor to the government; the alleged persecution aimed at
removing her from office and reducing her powers; as well as the threats
that had been made against her outside the Office of the Public
Prosecutor, with the presence of an armed person on one occasion."

The rule of law in Venezuela ended in 2009 when Judge Afiuni was arrested, raped and tortured for following the law and running afoul of the whims of then President Hugo Chavez. The continuing arbitrary nature of the Maduro regime and its escalating violence against nonviolent dissidents should indicate to reasonable observers that former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz is in great danger.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

"The tragedy was not the clamor of the bad people, but the silence of the good people." - Martin Luther King Jr.

On 8/5/94 Cubans marched for freedom in Cuba and were shot at by secret police

Twenty three years ago hundreds of Cubans took to the streets of Havana chanting freedom and called for the end of the Castro regime. The Clinton Administration had by that time begun to reach out to the Castro regime and push for a normalization of relations with Cuba. This was at a time when many thought the Cuban dictatorship was on its last legs. Despite the shoot down of two U.S. based planes over international airspace on February 24, 1996 killing three U.S. citizens and one resident by 2000 President Clinton had shaken hands with Fidel Castro and opened cash and carry trade with the Cuban dictatorship.

On 7/30/17 Venezuelans marched for freedom in Venezuela and were shot by snipers

Twenty three years later we gathered in Miami united for liberty in Venezuela. The Castro regime following years of engagement with President Clinton and President Obama has increased its influence throughout the Western Hemisphere. The OAS Secretary Luis Almagro testified that there are 15,000 Cubans in Venezuela acting as an occupying force. Venezuela in 2017 faces the real possibility of completing its transformation into Cuba 2.0 thanks to the indifference and collaboration of its neighbors, including the United States under the previous Administration. Over a 100 Venezuelans have been shot and killed by the Maduro regime's repressive apparatus over the past four months of protests.

The time for petitions and conflict resolution are over in both Cuba and Venezuela.

"Conflicts escalate when they are not resolved, and if they are left
untended they can rapidly get out of control." From the nonviolence
point of view, the
intensity of a conflict is not necessarily a question of how many guns
or how many people are involved (the same metric would work for a
quarrel between lovers as between nations); it is primarily about how
far dehumanization has proceeded. If someone no longer listens to you,
is calling you names or is labeling you, it’s probably too late for
petitions. In terms of knowing how to respond, we can
conveniently think of this escalation in three stages that call for
distinct sets of responses. Let’s call these three stages Conflict
Resolution, Satyagraha (active nonviolent resistance), and—hopefully
this is rare, but it helps to know it exists—Ultimate Sacrifice (see
Figure)."

In both countries the regimes in power call those who oppose them: worms, and fascists. In the recent past sectors of the political opposition in Venezuela sat down to dialogue with a government whose leadership rejects the legitimacy of the opposition
but used the process for tactical purposes to slow the imposition of
international sanctions while they continue to engage in systematic human rights violations. In
Cuba, the opposition is not only not recognized but is also illegal. In Venezuela the purpose of the Constituent Assembly that was brought into existence on July 30, 2017 with escalating repression, including government snipers shooting unarmed demonstrators in the head, and tampering with voting machines in a massive fraud is to make the opposition illegal. This will turn Venezuela into a second Cuba.Conflict
resolution works if when you register a complaint the other side listens
to you and although not sympathetic to you, recognizes your shared
humanity. The next stage, active nonviolent resistance, is necessary
when one can not reach one's adversary through reason, and involves
taking on suffering: civil disobedience, strikes, standing up to
physical abuse, and the full gamut of nonviolent tactics. Powerful elements within the Venezuelan resistance understand this and have put it into practice. Over social media the work of Gene Sharp is summarized in 140 characters: "Civil
disobedience is an attitude that must be taken personally. By reducing
support to the factors of power, these weaken and fall" and translated to Spanish along with more detailed images.

Unfortunately, the time for conflict resolution in both countries has
long passed and in the case of Venezuela the democratic resistance is
engaged in Satyagraha via mass demonstrations and many young people are also risking their lives continuing to march and protest the abuses and failures of the Maduro regime.

In Cuba there has been a nonviolent opposition that for decades
has engaged in projects and campaigns: both constructive and resisting
the regime paying a high price and risking all. These oppressive regimes
thrive on violence and hatred and seek to provoke it in both their
supporters and opponents in a spiral of dehumanization that entrenches
an unjust and exploitative system with deep structural violence.

The failure of the international community to address these profound injustices effectively now threaten to engulf and destabilize the entire region. Unfortunately this means that both in the Cuban and Venezuelan scenarios the conflict has escalated to the
level of "ultimate sacrifice." We are witnessing nonviolent activists murdered by both regimes in an international environment that for too many years allowed them to do so with impunity. In Venezuela over the past

Nevertheless those of us living abroad must protest and show our solidarity for those who continue to carry on the struggle in Cuba, Venezuela and other countries going through this type of struggle. This is why we gathered today at the Torch of Friendship with our Venezuelan brothers and sisters engaged in an existential struggle for the future of their homeland. Our prayers are with them.

There are voices gaining traction in Venezuela making the argument that violent resistance is now necessary to deal with the new political reality in the country. A century of data and the recent examples of Libya and Syria indicates that they are mistaken.

Furthermore, among some Venezuelans, there is the mistaken idea that Cubans did not fight against the imposition of communist rule in Cuba. Cuban author and artist Juan Abreu who advocates violent resistance in Venezuela also does not sugarcoat the difficulty nor the fact that Cubans failed to overthrow the Castros despite a formidable armed resistance because the communists are experts in violence and torture:

As I told you yesterday, Venezuelans, about civil war, that monstrous
thing, I should be honest with you; that war guarantees you nothing. I
should also warn you that you are going up against an organization made
up of assassins who are the most sadistic and brutal on this planet. You
should know that in Cuba there was a civil war as well. When the Castros came to power, Cuban citizens organized a formidable
armed resistance in the cities and in the mountains. A failure. It was
laid to waste.

You Venezuelans should know that the thugs of the Castro secret
police (who are directing the repression against you Venezuelans) are
brutal assassins and merciless. You should take into account that if you
do confront them, there will be blood and death.
All I will say is that one of the methods used by the Castro DSE (the
G-2 back in those days) consisted of tying anti-Castro insurgents by
their feet to the back bumper of an automobile and dragging them through coral rock on the Cuban coast until all that was left was an
unidentifiable mass of human flesh. I am mentioning just one of
the atrocious tortures among the many atrocious torture methods used by the
killing machine of the Castro repressive organs that you will be going
up against.

The Castro enemy is barbaric and cruel. Yes, that is even more reason to
kill them, I agree. But you should know what you are going up against.

The violent nature of this resistance made it easier for the communist dictatorship in Cuba to consolidate its totalitarian rule and "hermetically" seal the island, reinforcing the regime's false narrative that the opposition were terrorists and mercenaries, but less than a decade later a nonviolent alternative arose with the founding of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights on January 28, 1976 that the Castros could not so easily eliminate.

Hitler was overthrown by the outside intervention of the Allied Powers in WWII that claimed 40 million lives. The troubling question remains what would have happened if more Germans had non-violently resisted the Third Reich, as Mohandas Gandhi had counseled in 1940.

Syria is a cautionary tale that Venezuelans should pay close attention to. Unlike Libya the uprising against Bashar al-Assad was initially nonviolent and despite great provocations maintained a nonviolent posture that successfully placed the Syrian despot on the defensive. Unfortunately when elements of the army joined the opposition to Assad the decision was made, out of the mistaken belief that it would speed up victory, of turning to a violent resistance. On February 5, 2012 nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp gave the following advice to the opposition in Syria:

"Maintain non-violence, do not organise soldiers to use violence
against the remaining army. That is suicidal. That becomes a tool - that
is what the government would want you to do". ... "Use the mutinous
soldiers to persuade the rest of the soldiers also to mutiny - take the
army away then the regime will come tumbling down."

In an earlier interview in the United Kingdom on the BBC News program HARDtalk on January 30, 2012 Dr. Sharp said that "using violence is a stupid decision." Sadly that advise was not heeded. The end result has been the escalation of violence and fatalities in a
civil war and the consolidation of rule of Bashar al-Assad today and an opposition compromised by violent terrorist elements.
The odds of violent resistance successfully transitioning to a free society are higher than that of nonviolent resistance. However nonviolence is not a magic bullet anymore than violence is. In both a violent and nonviolent struggle success is determined by the side with greater resources and better strategy and tactics. Gene Sharp, a world renowned nonviolence theoretician, offers the following advice:

"You have to learn how to do it skillfully. If you are going to fight a
war violently you don't go to all the neighborhood bars and get all the
guys out there and say lets go fight a war but thats about the way
nonviolent struggle has been conducted over the centuries. People were
improvising. They didn't know what the hell they were doing. What would
make it effective? What should they be aware of? Who was this guy who
was urging violence? They didn't know he was a tool of the political
police. This happened in the Russian empire ... and repeatedly. It also
happened I am told with the Gestapo doing that. Dictators and rulers who
fear the power of people will do their damndest to defeat it and you
have to know how to be smarter than they are and more courageous and
more skilled in what you do."

Those of us outside of Venezuela can demonstrate our solidarity by sharing their communications, providing humanitarian assistance, and standing up in protests of support for the Venezuelan democratic opposition to let them know they are not alone. This Saturday, August 5, 2017 at 11:00am Miami will unite for a free Venezuela at the Torch of Freedom and all people of good will should be there to demonstrate their support.